Pearls of Wisdom

PEARLS OF WISDOM
Children, someone once said, are a consolation for everything in life, except having children.

Casey Stengel once observed “There comes time in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them.” And which of us hasn’t said the very same thing?

One of my readers, Stanley Helfeld, insists “The problem isn’t that we have a policy of leading from behind, it’s that we have a behind leading us.”

Another of my readers, Ed Rolanty of Toronto, wrote to tell me that he had followed American politics for most of his life, “And had I not witnessed it myself, I would never have believed the U.S. would proceed down the same misguided socialist path their neighbor to the north has been following for decades. From universal (lack of) healthcare to bilingualism to hare-brained immigration policies to ‘modern’ education and most other facets of the liberal agenda, only a fool would look to Canada as a shining example of the efficacy of those policies.”

Apparently the view from Toronto is clearer than it is down here, where only 67% of Americans, according to a recent poll, believe Obama is a liberal. Twenty-four percent regard him as a moderate and a spooky five percent are convinced he’s a conservative.

As I see the Russians, Chinese and Iranians, doing everything they can to prop up al-Assad in Syria, I am reminded of Spain in the 1930s. It’s not just that both countries have five-letter names beginning with an “S.” During Spain’s civil war, which saw Germany and Italy on one side and the Soviet Union on the other, the world got to see a rehearsal for World War II. I’m beginning to believe that Syria is the place where World War III will be kick-started.

In preparation for the big shebang, Muslims are rioting and killing in England, France and Sweden, while these dithering left-wing governments do little more than warn their citizens not to reciprocate. When, I wonder, will the highly vaunted tolerance in the West finally give way to something resembling sanity? These countries threw open their borders to millions of violent superstitious cretins who have no intention of assimilating, preferring sharia law to the laws of the European nations they leech off like parasites, all the while despising their hosts.

The major difference between Nazis and Muslims, by the way, is that the German thugs often had an appreciation of art, beauty and culture. As vile as they were, they wanted to rule the world of the 20th century, not that of the eighth.

In the meantime, Obama continues to demand that Gitmo be shut down, insisting that it’s a recruiting tool for jihadists, while failing to explain why there were numerous Muslim attacks on America and Europe decades before anyone had ever heard of Guantanamo. It’s not Gitmo the barbarians object to, it’s the notion of America imprisoning Muslims.

But speaking of Gitmo, what right do we have we to force-feed the prisoners? It seems to me that starvation would be a win-win for both sides. The prisoners could head off to Paradise and collect their 72 virgins, the military guards would be free to do something besides play nursemaids to terrorists and, yes, we could finally shut the place down. Perhaps we could even turn a profit on the deal by selling the place to Donald Trump so he could build a hotel.

Finally, I understand the benefit of a liberal arts education. In the past, the whole purpose of keeping kids in college majoring in French poetry, Polish history or black, Hispanic or lesbian, studies was to delay their entry into the job market, allowing older factory workers a chance to retire and make room for them.

But now that most factory jobs have disappeared and the economy has been dormant for so many years, I suspect the whole purpose of a liberal arts education has been to prepare young grads for a future spent in their parents’ basement, guzzling beer and texting misspelled inanities to one another.

Author Bio:

Burt Prelutsky, a very nice person once you get to know him, has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. As a freelancer, he has written for the New York Times, Washington Times, TV Guide, Modern Maturity, Emmy, Holiday, American Film, and Sports Illustrated.
For television, he has written for Dragnet, McMillan & Wife, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Bob Newhart, Family Ties, Dr. Quinn and Diagnosis Murder. In addition, he has written a batch of terrific TV movies. View Burt’s IMDB profile.
Talk about being well-rounded, he plays tennis and poker... and rarely cheats at either.
He lives in the San Fernando Valley, where he takes his marching orders from a wife named Yvonne and a dog named Angel.Author website: http://www.burtprelutsky.com/

The fact that Prelutsky quotes Casey Stengel says it all about his irrational longing for the good old days of the 50’s and 60’s….Burt is still fighting those commies and hippies….sad to see how many of the baby boomers have become fear mongers and haters…

cmacrider

And equally sad to see your ilk calling yourselves “progressives” when the best you can come up with is european socialism which came to prominence in the 39’s, windmills, bicycles, and railroad trains.

Wheels55

Oh, so you are a baby boomer? You seem to be the one spreading fear and hate.
True baby boomers learned personal responsibility and came from a period of love. We learned to hate war and love our country and fellow-man at the same time. You should try that.

Darren Perkins

Why don’t you try being a true American and support the character of the nation that was formed by our founding fathers. What you think is enlightenment is nothing new. It’s what our form of government was supposed to guard against. The path you seem to want us to follow has been traveled before. Ever wonder how the US got to be the best country on earth to live in? It wasn’t because our government controlled everything and everyone and stuck it’s nose in to every nook and cranny of our lives. Love of country should not mean love of government but for you I think they are one and the same.

Wheels55

You have me all wrong. I am a Libertarian and strongly prefer smaller government. I think we would be an even better country if we had smaller government instead of wasting our time and money on Big Brother ideas.
I was trying to point out that Baby Boomers are not fear mongers and haters.

Darren Perkins

Sorry… this was meant for legal eagle, guess i pressed the wrong reply button.

Thewryobservator

5 x 5

cmacrider

And equally sad to see your ilk calling yourselves “progressives” when the best you can come up with is european socialism which came to prominence in the 30’s, windmills, bicycles, and railroad trains.

cmacrider

The wry…. sorry I misposted

GlenFS

Burt, you got the host/parasitic description just right. These are not like immigrants of the past who wanted to go join and be part of a new and better culture. These Muslim immigrants are there to create the Islamic society they could never manage to build in their own homelands. Meanwhile western nations seem to be obliviously content to play the perfect host. Stupidity.

Brian Fr Langley

None of this is too surprising if you understand the long term goals of both Islam and the Comintern. Comintern (communist international) has long been a world revolution. That is, they always intended for a one world socialist Government. With the fall of the Soviet Union we all thought they went away. They didn’t. If you trace virtually all left wing policies that are currently espoused by the so called intelligensia, back stopped by modern media. The fount, of all the social disorder (displacing traditional American values) we see, is marxist. From the attacks on a free market economy, to the persistant attacks on liberty, and of course a burning desire to supplant the traditional family. (family values are anethema to collectives) The other one world ideology is Islam. From it’s inception Islam has always intended to become the worlds only lawful religion. But Islam (which means submission) is also an ideology. Bringing with it Sharia law, it condems unbelievers (yes even still in our modern age) to death or slavery. While patently ridiculous on the service, these two are close allies.(I mean Godless commies and Muslims)? But in a new twist on the enemy of my enemy is my friend, (even a modicum of research bears this out) both are implacable enemies of Republican democracies. We need to WAKE UP.

legal eagle

Quite a soliloquy…..Those good old family values of the 50’s and 60’s….I do believe you’d make a fine speechwriter for the Old White Party aka The GOP…

cmacrider

see above

Brian Fr Langley

and being totally duped by the marxist leninist socialist propoganda machine aren’t you just the “cool young hipster”

legal eagle

I’m 61 years old….I limit being duped to family members….LOL

Brian Fr Langley

PS comrade, your post shows a shocking amount of intolerance? “OLD” “WHITE” I guess in your America “old white” guys have no valid opinions? Just an aside comrade, “race” is a CONSTRUCT not a FACT. It comes from that formidable “social science” we called eugenics. Like global warming it once had the consensus of most scientists. Enthusiastically embraced by the likes of Margaret Sanger (marxist founder of planned parenthood) and Adolph Hitler (no intro needed) It merrily set about planning to better us by breeding. Happily modern genetics has borne out the bed time bible stories your Grandmother shared with you. There is in fact, only one race of men on planet earth. It’s called the human race. Turns out, we really are all bretheren after all.

legal eagle

Old White guys run the country and always have.. That’s why they are so fearful and hateful…Obama is a symbol to them of a loss of power…even a loss of a little power makes the ruling class reacts predictably and irrationally…. look at what happened in the 1960’s…police riots, students being shot, protestors being beaten, anti government forces being jailed…..CHANGE IS SCARY…

Wheels55

The 67% comes from liberals that think Obama is too far to the center because he hasn’t used executive orders to make everything in the USA liberal.

As for Liberal Arts degrees and other rather useless forms of higher education: one still can find a job that is productive. You just can’t expect be paid to be liberally artful. Too many college degrees end up being the 13th – 16th grades of high school. It’s what kids learn afterwards that really counts.